[Ron_Johnston,_James_Sidaway]_Geography_and_Geography_since_1945.pdf (original) (raw)
Related papers
Editors\u27 introduction: human geography
2012
When we were invited by Sage to identify published work in human geography that represents what is best and most distinctive about the field it seemed an impossible task (it still does) because there is such a rich volume of material to draw from. We decided to focus on Englishlanguage and to a lesser extent other European contributions, although we are acutely aware of the irony, even the imperialism, of limiting a field like human geography to knowledges rooted in only a fraction of the world. We discuss below the dangers of delimiting Geography as a European or Euro-American science, and several of our selections return to this issue again and again. If there is a much richer geography of Geography than this, there is also a much longer history than our selections might imply. Our focus on the last thirty years is not an exercise in progressivism or triumphalism which treats the present as the climactic moment in a chain of contributions that reaches back into an ever more distan...
The nature of changes in human geography since the 1980s
Belgeo, 2003
This paper concerns the changes in human geographical research over the last 20 years as far as the mainstream Anglo-Saxon publications are concerned. We contend that although a lot of continuity appears through the further co-existence of the three broad approaches in geography (regional, theoretical quantitative and radical), societal and scientific changes have brought new elements into geographical practice. They can be captured with four characteristics: human geography is holographic, ethnographic, constructivist and institutionalist. The two first characteristics are metaphors of the geographical empirical science that seeks to unveil the whole within the parts and the symbolic order behind every practice. The two others are more essential and point to the fact that geography now explicitly examines the socio-spatial reality as a social product shaped by and reshaping human institutions. As a result geography has made a lot of progress. It uses more relevant concepts to engage in clarifying the problems of our time, the physical environment is reintroduced in human geography as a hybrid category and the old opposition between the idiographic and nomothetic approaches is finally transcended. However, there are limits to the postmodern constructivist stance, which imply that radical geography remains a crucial component of human geography in order to explicit problems of social justice.
2016
This paper concerns the changes in human geographical research over the last 20 years as far as the mainstream Anglo-Saxon publications are concerned. We contend that although a lot of continuity appears through the further co-existence of the three broad approaches in geography (regional, theoretical quantitative and radical), societal and scientific changes have brought new elements into geographical practice. They can be captured with four characteristics: human geography is holographic, ethnographic, constructivist and institutionalist. The two first characteristics are metaphors of the geographical empirical stance that seeks to unveil the whole within the parts and the symbolic order behind everyday practice. The two others are more essential and point to the fact that geography now explicitly examines the socio-spatial reality as a social product shaped by and reshaping human institutions. As a result geography has made a lot of progress. It uses more relevant concepts to eng...
Editors' introduction: human geography
2012
When we were invited by Sage to identify published work in human geography that represents what is best and most distinctive about the field it seemed an impossible task (it still does) because there is such a rich volume of material to draw from. We decided to focus on Englishlanguage and to a lesser extent other European contributions, although we are acutely aware of the irony, even the imperialism, of limiting a field like human geography to knowledges rooted in only a fraction of the world. We discuss below the dangers of delimiting Geography as a European or Euro-American science, and several of our selections return to this issue again and again. If there is a much richer geography of Geography than this, there is also a much longer history than our selections might imply. Our focus on the last thirty years is not an exercise in progressivism or triumphalism which treats the present as the climactic moment in a chain of contributions that reaches back into an ever more distant and ever more imperfect past. Here too our decision was a purely pragmatic way to confine our search.
Challenges and opportunities for human geography: A few remarks
2020
In the long-term development of human geography we can observe a tendency to combine ideas from an intradisciplinary debate and those imported from outside the discipline. It is profoundly influenced by a number of impulses from the rapidly changing world. This paper provides a brief survey of challenges for human geography setting them within the context of paradigmatic development and economic, social, cultural, environmental, political, and technological changes. It briefly focuses on the debates of human geographers what their discipline could or should study in the near future and how it could be done. Part of the paper is devoted to a few reflections of authors from the Visegrad Four countries concentrating attention to further direction of human geography. Human geography is unlikely to be characterised by a mono-paradigm dominance in the next few decades, but a discussion on how to find a common base for the integration of paradigms in geography is likely to continue. Changi...
Advanced Seminar in Human Geography
This graduate seminar explores some of the major theoretical trends in contemporary human geography. We will investigate key debates and concepts that inform current scholarship on social, cultural, political, and economic geographies using different lenses through which to understand geographical notions of space, place, and scale. The aims of the course are, therefore, threefold: (1) to provide a solid foundation and appreciation for the diversity of contemporary perspectives in human geography; (2) to examine major thematic areas of human geographical inquiry and debate; (3) to, above all, cultivate one’s own “geographical imagination” by critically assessing current geographical scholarship while also contributing to the literature with an original piece of geographical research. The format for class sessions will be based upon group discussions of the assigned readings, where students will have the opportunity to present to the class and facilitate at least one class discussion over the course of the semester.